Authenticating Your Product

RFID offers an added layer of difficulty to counterfeiters. Embedding the tag in the product can make it virtually undetectable. Although the tags themselves are available to anyone, your ability to program them with unique information including a serial number provides added security and a way to verify whether a product is authentic.

RFID also gives you the ability to embed information in the tag that will allow you to scan it and understand the path it took through sales channels. We have heard many complaints about items appearing on auction sites or heavily discounted through an Internet-only retailer that is not supposed to have access to the product. How did it get there? Where is the leak in your channel? Simply scan the RFID tag of an item you get from the unauthorized source and the tag will tell you which channel you shipped it through.

Additionally, we have done a project with a manufacturer that makes commodity building materials that are difficult to identify once installed. In the past, when an end customer called for warranty service, if was difficult and expensive to determine if it was this manufacturer’s product and responsibility to repair. It was also very difficult to determine age of the product. By embedding RFID, they can now know whether it is their product or not and easily identify the lot code.